Stuck Like Glue
by Radical.2
Summary: Theo never really expected that his day would be any different than usual: watching Hermione, talking about her to Blaise, thinking of her... until today, when they got stuck together into a bizzare situation that could end in sadness, or the opposite...


Blaise and I were walking towards the Great Hall when he whispered to me- a bit louder than he should've- "Hey, Theo, it's your girlfriend!"

"Shut up!" I hissed, yanking him by the robes back around the corner he'd just passed. "Don't let her see us. What if she heard that? She could be right on the other side of this wall..." I suddenly turned and stared at the wall, narrowing my eyes at it, as if she was there.

Blaise chuckled quietly. "Do we need to freak out every time we see her? She's just a girl-"

"Shut up," I said again. "She's not just a girl. She's... you know... I don't know, help me out here, Blaise! She's..." I looked up at him expectantly.

"Awesome," he offered. I rolled my eyes. "Hey, you couldn't think of anything!" he defended himself.

"She's indescribable. She's Gryffindor, she's a genius. She's pretty. She's... you know what? She _is _pretty awesome," I admitted. Blaise smirked at that.

"She's capable of making a fifteen-year-old, dignified, pure-blooded, Slytherin boy into a paranoid, obsessed-" he started to add, but I cut in.

"I am not paranoid, nor am I obsessed!" I exclaimed in an urgent whisper.

"You don't even know if she really is there, in the Great Hall. I just told you that she was. What if she's not? That means that you just glared at a wall, practically assaulted me when I rounded the corner-"

I interrupted him again. "I did not _assault_ you! Stop being so melodramatic!"

"_I'm _being melodramatic?"

"Yes. Very," I replied. Blaise rolled his eyes at me. I paused for a moment, then asked, "Do you think she's gone by now?"

"Was she ever there?" he questioned, eyes narrowing at me.

"You tell me!" I said, then froze.

"Well-"

"Shut up!" I hissed in Blaise's ear. "I can hear her!" At first I just stayed next to Blaise, but after a few seconds of that, my feet started to move of their own accord, towards her. Then I saw her- she was talking to Ginny Weasley. She looked distressed. She looked sad. She looked angry. I quickly went back to Blaise, saying, "She's all sad and stuff! What do I do now?" Blaise shrugged.

"Just listen to see what's al happening, I guess," he answered silently.

I nodded, then listened as much as I could. She was talking to Ginny about her brother. Which one? After a minute, I deduced that it was Ron. Ron had done something... something bad? Yes, something "low and utterly despicable" in her own words. She was angry at Ron. Ron had acted like a... I won't repeat that. Ron had...

That's when I decided to hate Ron Weasley. I was about to tell this to Blaise, when suddenly her voice and Ginny's got closer. I shot Blaise a panicked look, and he mouthed, "Be cool," back at me. Cool... I could do that. I messed my hair up a bit more than it already was, put a casual look on my face, and-

"All guys are such morons!" I heard her exclaim. "Every one of them!" That was the one thing she could have said that could possibly have caused me to go around the corner, face her, and say, "Hey!" defiantly.

"What are you-" she started to ask me, but then Headmaster Dumbledore popped out of literally nowhere, his wand pointed out at us. He shouted a spell dramatically- forget Blaise or me being melodramatic, Albus Dumbledore takes the cake- and suddenly these weird-looking red and green threads started to twine and braid around my and her wrists, binding them together. I didn't do anything, just watched the threads thicken into a cool, magicky bracelet thing. I was mesmerized. That is, until the bracelet-thing stopped glowing and growing.

Ginny spoke first, saying, "What is _that_?"

"I'm not sure," I answered, poking at it. "It's kinda... jiggly!"

Then _she _spoke, eyes wide, expression thoughtful and alarmed. She seemed to have forgotten about Ron for the moment. "I read about it in a book... It's like the wizard version of muggle handcuffs." Then her eyes got even wider, and she looked up at Dumbledore. "Are we in trouble, sir? Because I can already tell you, I didn't do anything. I was at the library last night until it closed, Madam Pince can-" She stopped abruptly when she saw Dumbledore shaking his head.

"Not exactly, Ms. Granger," he informed her. Hermione cast him a look of confusion, which turned to another wide-eyed, surprised look when he said, "You two are to come up to my office after dinner tonight and tell me what you've learned." Now she was curious.

But I spoke first. "What do you mean, sir?" I asked slowly. I was trying to hide my inner excitement- I was stuck with Hermione Granger until after dinner! That was a whole day! We could go outside and walk and talk, I could show her that really cool painting of Salazar Slytherin in the dungeons and how fun it was to annoy him, we could climb a tree or swim in the lake or-

"You'll see," Dumbledore answered cryptically, raising an eyebrow at Hermione. And then, with another loud pop, he was gone. That was when Blaise finally rounded the corner, his expression insanely curious. Well, he had heard me say that something was jiggly...

"Hey, she is there! See, Theo, I was right!" he exclaimed, ignoring Hermione and Ginny, who were now giving both of us confused looks.

"Would you just shut up for _once_ in your _life_?" I hissed at him. "He- I mean, she was- I just-" I cut myself off with a groan, giving Blaise a significant look. He nodded back, understanding clear on his face.

"What are you guys even talking about? I have no idea what you're saying," Hermione said irritably. Blaise cast me a quizzical look, as if to ask _What's up with her_? I gave him a look in which I attempted to say _She's mad at Ron Weasley, I'll tell you about it later! Just leave me and her to go and do romantic stuff outside! Just go, and take Ginny with you, too! Please! _Unfortunately, he didn't get the message. Either that or he purposely ignored it. I suspect the latter.

Hermione was still waiting, and I know she would've crossed her arms if her right wrist wasn't stuck with mine. I felt a flash of pity for her, but I quickly buried that under my obsession and love for her. I wasn't going to be able to cheer her up if I was all depressed and distressed like she was. I needed to be happy, appreciative of life and love. I replied and said, "Blaise and I were just looking for you. We were... er..."

Blaise jumped in- a bit too quick and without thinking, because he finished, "We were wondering if you liked Theo here, because he's in love with you! He talks about you all the time and, actually, just a few minutes ago-" I swore loudly, kicking him in the shin. If I could, I would have run off just then. I started to feel for whoever had had this happen to them- the whole stuck-together thing, that is.

As it so happens, that was when Ginny snagged Blaise by the arm and ran away with him, somewhere outside. I saw them glance back at us, then begin to discuss something, too far away for me to hear. Of course, the two kids with the wizard handcuffs are the abandoned ones. Can anyone else see discrimination written all over that? And not only that, I was left in an extremely awkward situation.

Luckily, I'm a very good liar. "It's Blaise, he's the one that likes you. He's just trying to make this even more embarrassing and awkward than it already is." Not so luckily, Hermione's very good at telling when I'm lying. And she reads into things way too deep.

"So, being stuck with me is awkward and embarrassing?" Hermione gave me an annoyed look, raising her eyebrows and scrunching up her nose in disgust.

"No! It's just that I'm a Slytherin, and you're a Gryffindor. You're a girl, I'm boy. From far away, it looks like we're holding hands. Hell, we are right now- we just were holding hands..." I trailed off as she tried to yank her hand away, or at least so that we weren't holding hands. Except that that was kinda painful. I took Hermione's hand again, and she took it. But her nails were purposely digging into my skin.

I narrowed my eyes at the girl, not to be beaten. I squeezed her hand tightly; my knuckles were turning a burning white. She held my hand just as tightly, and I couldn't help but blurt out, "Damn, you are _strong_!" Hermione gave me a mischievous grin, though I could sense that she was still bummed out about the whole Ron-thing. Well, not really bummed out, but pissed off. Vengeful.

"Thanks," Hermione said, relaxing her grip on my hand at the same time that I did. "So... what now?"

I pulled a crumpled piece of parchment from my robes with my right hand, then scanned it. "Let's see... Dinner is in a few hours... The library opened a few hours ago... There's Slytherin quidditch practice in an hour, have to go to that... There's-"

"Yeah, but you're not _really_ going to practice like this, right?" Hermione asked me, snorting a little at the possibility. My expression tightened a little bit. It turned out that she wasn't so easy to like. I mean, who doesn't want to watch hot Slytherin guys practice sports? But I would perservere, because that's what love does. And I couldn't hate her when we were stuck together like this- not yet, at least.

"Actually, yes, I _was_ planning to go, or at least observe, because we have a game next Saturday. Against Gryffindor," I replied stiffly, fighting to keep a calm smile on my face.

"Well, _I _was planning on spending _my_ day at the library, but we can't always get what we want, can we?" Hermione gave me a significant look, her eyebrows up again. She was waiting for me to agree with her.

Too bad for her, then! "What are you saying?" I asked suspiciously.

"That I'm not going to some stupid quidditch practice with a bunch of moronic Slytherins!"

Okay, calm down, Theo. Think rationally. "How about we go to the library first, get you a few books to read, and then you can read while we practice?" I suggested.

"What are you going to do, then?" Damn.

"I'll just watch and learn, I suppose. Sit in the stands. Because I'm so _polite_ and _kind_ and _willing_," I added pridefully.

Hermione just snorted. "As if a _guy _could ever be polite," she said saracastically, chuckling at the very idea.

"Okay, _you_ have _serious _problems with being polite," I said to her; we started walking towards the library. "Ever heard of feminism? Well, I'm into masculinism, or whatever the word is. Meaning that I believe that it isn't necessary to hate all guys just because of-"

"Because of what?" Hermione cut in, her Ron-problems written all over her face.

"Nothing," I said, and we resumed walking in silence.

* * *

><p>The first time that I said, "Hey, Hermione!" as we sat next to each other in the stands, she expectantly looked up from her book at me. When I said, "Nevermind," she just looked annoyed and went back to reading her book. The second time I said that, she looked up again and said, "What?" somewhat harshly, and I said, "Nothing." She rolled her eyes and then they were stuck to her book.<p>

"Hey, Hermione," I said for the third time, but she ignored me. Not to be defeated, I poked her repeatedly in the arm until she looked up at me. Her brown eyes were blazing, her mouth set firmly in an annoyed frown.

"_What now_?" she hissed. Frankly, I was too frightened of this girl to say something irritating again.

So I asked her politely, "What are you reading?" But I guess she's one of those people that don't like to be interrupted while reading, because she just replied, "A book." Then, yeah, went back to reading yet again. It wouldn't have bothered me this much if I wasn't bored out of my mind. Turned out that watching quidditch was much lamer than playing in the game, and the fact that the guys kept shouting rude comments at me didn't help. Not at all.

A few minutes later, to my surprise, Hermione started quietly crying as she read. Was it the Ron-thing again? I asked her, "What's wrong?" softly, sounding sincere enough that when she looked up at me, she wasn't totally pissed off. But maybe that was just because she was sad.

"It's a sad part in my book," Hermione whispered to me, quickly looking back at the book.

"What kind of moronic book makes a girl cry?" I exclaimed, and she flinched at my loud voice. She was about to say something, but I continued, "Making a girl cry is even worse than punching her in the face! What kind of crap is this, anyway?" I snatched up the book, reading the cover. "_New Moon_. Even the name sounds like total crap!" And with that, I tossed the book right off of the stands with my right hand.

Hermione instantly jumped up, yanking me with her. She scrambled to pull her wand from her robes, but since her right hand was in my left, it wasn't easy. By the time she'd gotten her wand out, the book was too far away to save, still falling. When she realized this, Hermione turned to me angrily and said, "Why the hell did you do that? That was a _library book_, you _moron_!"

"I forgot about that," I replied sheepishly, wishing I could back away from her. Even better, she still had her wand out, and now she was pointing the thing at me. No, not at me, but at the jiggly-red-and-green-magic-handcuffs-thingy.

"Relashio!" she yelled, and I jumped a foot in the air, I swear.

"What are you _doing_?"

"Reducto-" she started to say, but I shoved her by the shoulders to stop the spell. At the rate she was going, I'd be dead- exploded into a million pieces- in mere seconds. I scrabbled for her wand, but she already had it pointed at me. "Everte statum!" I was thrown back ten feet, and her with me. I bet she forgot about our situation for a moment- very unlike her to forget something like that. Must have been distracted...

I was going to have a nice bruise on my side from that, and she would, too, I thought. Served her right, she could have blasted me off the side of the stands, just like that stupid book. I was about to give Hermione a good talking-to about that, when she spoke.

"I was trying... to get rid of that... that bloody _thing_!" she panted, gesturing angrily at the binding bracelet.

"Ah," I answered in understanding. "I had thought that you were trying to kill me, not the... Ah," I said again, still scared out of my wits, just a little bit. If she didn't have good aim with her spells, if she wasn't the best in our year... I tried not to shudder at that thought, but I think I did. "You pretty much scared the hell out of me," I admitted.

"Sorry," Hermione apologized. "I just hate _having_ to be stuck with you. I mean, you're alright, I might even spend a day with you like this, but the fact that I don't have any time by myself to read... it's nerve-racking. I'd rather hold hands with a person of my own free will, you know?"

"Yeah," I said, realizing that she was being honest with me. "I know."

"An the fact that I'm stuck with a _guy_ all day... Well, that doesn't make it better," she added.

"Would you get over your moronic theory that all guys are total morons?" I teased, shaking my head. "Shame on you for thinking that!" Hermione laughed a little, and then her expression turned from content to alarmed within a fraction of a second.

"Theo!" she yelled, shoving me down and falling on top of me.

"What the..." I muttered, looking up to see her face inches from mine. "Why did you just..." I started to say, trailing off awkwardly. Hermione helped me up with her free hand, shaking slightly. She looked scared, while I probably just looked like a clueless, distracted-by-a-pretty-girl boy. I followed her line of sight to see a bludger flying away from the stands. I looked at Hermione closely. "Did that just-"

"Yeah," she said. "Almost hit you."

I looked with accusation at the guys still flying, and one of them called, "Sorry, Nott, it was an accident! It just kind of rebounded off one of the posts..." I just ignored him and turned back to Hermione. Oh, Merlin. She might have just saved my life... right after she nearly ended it with a bang. I guess we were even, now. Squared.

A while later, Blaise flew up to us on his Nimbus 2001 and handed Hermione her library book back. The binding was practically shattered to pieces, chunks of pages starting to slip out. And, even better, it was splattered with mud. Hermione turned to me with narrowed eyes, and Blaise just chuckled as he flew off again.

"Theo..."

"I'm sorry!"

* * *

><p>"Mr. Nott! Ms. Granger!" a voice panted out from behind us. We were walking towards the castle to eat dinner, trying to decide where the hell we were going to sit. Most everyone already knew about us, thanks to the Slytherin quidditch team, but it still posed as a minor dilemma.<p>

Both Hermione and I turned around to see Professor Sprout attempting to run after us, but it was more of a slow jog. Well, it was more of a fast, really determined, overworking walk. But don't tell her I said that. Hermione and I hastened towards the woman, and I saw that her hair was even messier than it usually was, and it looked like something had taken a big bite out of her robes.

"What happened, Professor? Can we help you?" Hermione asked politely, using her worried-for-you face that, in the Slytherins' opinion, makes her look like a real suck-up to the teachers. But, I realized then, she actually was anxious. She really did care. Huh.

Sprout replied, "Yes! Yes, yes, please do! I'll give you anything, just help me! There's this..." She kept speaking, but I stopped listening ater she said _anything_.

"Anything..." I said under my breath.

"What?" Sprout and Hermione said at the same time, both of them turning to me expectantly.

"Hermione," I said, "if you could have anything, would you want to be free from me for the rest of this? 'Cause if you're getting too sick of it... Sprout could ask Dumbledore to get rid of it early." I shouldn't have said that. My dream come true, and was helping to destroy it. Except, if it was what she really wanted... I couldn't be in the way of that, right?

Sprout just looked confused, but Hermione had wide eyes, and then a small smile played on her lips. She looked... touched. "I'll think about it," she said simply, quietly. "But... why? Aren't you-"

"Can we discuss you two's obvious affection for each other _later_?" Sprout cut in. "I've got a robe-eating plant on the loose in my greenhouses!"

"Oh, right," Hermione said, snapping out of that dazed state and taking out her wand again. "Yeah. Plant. Come on, Theo!" she added, rushing towards the greenhouses and taking me with her. That was about when Sprout's words processed in my brain. I was a bit slow at the moment.

"No, wait, robe-eating plant? What did she say?" I asked, my voice a bit squeaky. I blame puberty, but that was probably my fear of robe-eating plants doing that. Not that I have that fear. But it didn't sound exactly pleasant, you know what I mean?

At least we could delay the lunch thing for a while.

The first thing I noticed when we hesitantly entered the greenhouses- well, Hermione did that, I just kind of barged through the door- was the dirt all over the floor. Dirt, leaves, bits of plant roots, all of that. The second thing? The lighting. The natural light filtered through the glass roof and made everything look utterly dramatic. Like Hermione- she looked heartbreakingly beautiful as she slowly walked through that door.

"Hey, watch it!" she exclaimed as the door slammed right into her.

"Crap, sorry," I apologized quickly. "I was just..." admiring you. "This place is nice," I improvised, giving her a quirky half-smile. She just shook her head and kept her wand out, a strange expression on her face. As if she were somewhat scared, uncomfortable, but not because of the robe-eating plant. Because of me? I hoped not. I also hoped that I wouldn't get eaten by a plant. Had Sprout said something about that when I'd zoned out? I hoped not.

I hoped... I hoped that Hermione... I hoped for her. I hoped that either she'd like me back, or that I'd stop liking... _loving_ her. Because I didn't think I'd be able to stand liking a girl and her not liking me back. I'd read lots of books about that kind of stuff, and I wasn't about to let myself get hurt. Besides, she was just a girl. She'd be easy to get over.

Well, no, not really.

"Do you trust me?" Hermione asked me suddenly. I was getting my wand out, but I stopped for a moment and took her other hand in my free one. After a few seconds, she looked up at me curiously.

"Hermione Granger," I started. "Even though I was earlier convinced that you were trying to explode me into a million pieces, even though I was also convinced that, when that bludger came and you pushed me, you were trying to kill me again, even though you're a freaking Gryffindor, and I'm Slytherin... Yeah, I trust you. Somehow, after that... Before, maybe I wouldn't have. But now, in the craziest of situations, I trust you."

"Okay... Well, I was just hoping for a yes, actually, but that'll do. Because, you see... You're going to be the bait," Hermione finished quickly, her eyes asessing me for any fear or distrust in her.

"Sure!" I said instantly, my voice getting all squeaky again.

"Oh, and Theo?"

"What?"

"...Nevermind."

But I could see it written all over her face.

* * *

><p>I was the bait. I was the covered-in-weird-plant-attracting-goo bait, the bait with his skin "temporarily" dyed a light green color. It had better be temporary, anyway. But I did trust Hermione, and if she casted a spell, I would believe it when she told me that she could dye it back again. Hell, maybe I'd even request she make me darker- more of a tanned, hot Theo than a pale, indoors-guy Theo. That'd be pretty cool.<p>

I was racing through the greenhouses, dragging Hermione along with me, looking around for anything big, mean, or carnivorous. Nothing yet. We were almost to the end when I finally saw it. It was... shit, it was all three of those adjectives. Like an overgrown pumpkin with tangled green vines and a thousand sharp thorns. I swear that it smelled me before it saw me, but that's just me talking. Thinking. Whatever.

"Hey, Mr. Plant! Yeah, I'm talking to you!" It wouldn't hurt to taunt it just a little bit... "You, you over there, with the big head and the ugly... body! Wow, it's just... you are the damn ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life! I mean, I've seen some awful stuff, but you... You are just over the top _ugly_! I'd rather make out with Dumbledore than be within ten feet of you!" Now he _was _within ten feet of me. That was when I slowly begin to back away; it started to slither towards me.

"Theo... Was that really necessary?" Hermione asked me. She stayed firmly in place, so I couldn't back away much more than a step.

"Just kill it now!" I said urgently. The thing was getting closer, within a few feet of my own feet, and then it was leaning in close with it's ugly orange head, about to take a big chomp out of my shoe... "_Hermione_!" I yelled.

"Reducio!"

The plant-thing instantly shrunk to the size of a thumbtack as Hermione kept her wand on it. Then I noticed something. "Hermione, you aren't left-handed! How did you..." I trailed off in amazement and admiration.

She shrugged, starting to smile a little. "I practice, just in case. It's always best to be prepared."

"What, did you theorize that someday you might get stuck to a weird Slytherin boy and have to fight a man-eating plant?" I joked.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Did you listen to anything she said at all? The plant thing didn't eat people, only other plants and peoples' robes... maybe, shoes, too," she added, glancing down at my right shoe. It had this weird plant-saliva crap on it. Or maybe it actually was plant crap... I'd expect anything from that ugly thing.

"I shouldn't have taunted it, right?"

"Pretty much."

"Why didn't Sprout just use that spell on the plant thing, anyway?" I asked curiously. Hermione snorted.

"She left her wand on a table... it got eaten," Hermione said, struggling to keep a straight face.

"Come on, just laugh. You know you want to," I said. Then we both burst into hysterical laughter, so much so that we both started crying.

* * *

><p>"Hey, Theo?" Hermione said after a moment of silence. We were both sitting on a table, probably the one table in the whole of the greenhouses that wasn't covered in plants and flowers and other weird stuff. Every few minutes she would clean the floor with a spell, or the glass walls, or my own robes... I wasn't covered in plant-attracter-goo anymore, thankfully. I was still green-skinned, though.<p>

"What?" I asked her, "and don't back out again. I want to hear whatever you want to say, because I trust you now." Trusted, liked, loved...

"I was just going to ask you if you wanted me to fix your skin; it's still tinted green. Keeping it like that too long... It might not be that temporary," Hermione admitted, flushing a little.

"Oh, yeah, definitely!" I said eagerly. "In a moment. I wanted to ask you something, actually."

Hermione looked at her feet, dangling in the air. "Sure. Ask away."

"Why do you think that all guys are total morons?" I questioned her. She looked up at me, and I could see myself in the reflections of her eyes. I could see myself clearly because we were both leaning in, closer...

"I don't," she whispered to me. And then we kissed. And kissed. And kissed. It's not like I was keeping track of how long I was in total bliss... but I was pretty sure that it was approximately twenty-one minutes and four seconds before Sprout came in the door and gasped. I suppose it would look a little surprising, how I was lying on top of Hermione, how we were kinda-sorta making out, how we were expected to be killing a plant monster, all of _that_.

I quickly got off of Hermione, sitting up straight, and she did the same. "Well..." I said after a few seconds. "We killed the plant, Professor."

"I can see that," Sprout said, attempting to blink away any memories of Hermione and I. "The Headmaster would like to see you in his office."

"Of course," Hermione said quickly, still politely, her grip on my hand tightening as she and I made our way out of there as fast as we could. As soon as the door closed with a click behind us, our abrupt seriousness dissolved into laughter.

"I'll race you there," Hermione challenged me.

"That makes no sense!" I exclaimed with another laugh, but we were already running.

* * *

><p>"Well, Mr. Nott, Ms. Granger... learned a lesson, have you?" Dumbledore looked at us both expectantly. He leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers on his desk, waiting for either of us to say something. Anything.<p>

"That all guys aren't total morons?" Hermione suggested, her face twitching into a smile directed at me. I grinned back at her.

"And you, Mr. Nott?" Dumbledore switched his piercing blue gaze to me.

"Honestly... no," I admitted. "I mean, nothing worth saying. I've learned that you shouldn't taunt ugly pumpkin-plant-monster-things. I've learned that you shouldn't throw library books over the stands while watching quidditch practice. I've learned..." I paused thoughfully. "Yeah, that's it." I mimicked Dumbledore and leaned back in my own chair, yawning dramatically.

"That's it?" He sounded surprised.

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked him slowly, trying to swallow it. We hadn't learned what we were supposed to, and she was going to be stuck with me for another hour, a day, a week. I mean, it'd be cool for a while, but Hermione would go crazy. I'd get bored out of my mind, and what about classes? And eating? We hadn't even had dinner yet!

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows at me, then his eyes scrunched up and concentrated on me, as if he could read my mind by simply staring at me. Well, with him being him, I might believe that. If only I could convince him with my scrambled thoughts and feelings alone that we, or at least Hermione, deserved to be rid of the magic he'd placed on us.

I stared into space, thinking of when Hermione had gotten desperate and nearly blasted me to bits out of frustration. I thought of her narrowed eyes, pursed lips, hand clenched around her wand. Then there was a mental montage of her holding my hand so tightly that her knuckles burned white, and me retaliating by holding hers just as hard. Me kissing her in the greenhouses, her saying, "I don't," right before that. The Slytherin guys taunting me and Blaise running off with Ginny to let us be. Hermione in the library, smiling as she ran her fingers across the titles, meticulously drawing books from their shelves, turning pages with a feverish look on her face. Her crying as she read, being angry when I threw the book... Then her expression when Blaise gave her the book back. Her saying, "Theo!" And me saying, "I'm sorry!" Because I really was sorry, I was sorry. The book looked like total crap, but I was sorry. Sorry...

"Theo!" Yes, that's what Hermione had said. My name.

"I'm sorry," I muttered. "Sorry about the book, sorry about taunting the plant, sorry about being annoyed at you, sorry I got you in this mess. Sorry about whatever happened with Ron..."

"Theo!" Hermione shouted in my ear, shaking me. I woke from my daze with a start, my eyes wide.

"Hi!" I exclaimed quickly, my heart beating fast in my chest. "Bloody hell, that was..." I trailed off, swaying a little in my chair. "What was that? I mean, I just... and it... and then... I mean, I just... Why are you looking at me like that?" Hermione and Dumbledore looked at me with extremely curious expressions. I was suddenly very aware that I was alone in a room full of magical geniuses.

"It's gone," Hermione told me.

"What is?"

"You know," she said. "The..." I followed her line of sight, and took in a sharp breath. I lifted up my left hand slowly, examining my wrist carefully. There was no sign or mark to prove that today had ever even happened. I clasped my hands together, staring at them in wonder. How strange that having the use of my left hand would ever feel so weird. So... awesome.

"Woah... That's awesome!" I exclaimed. "Thanks, Dumbl- sir!" But he was already shaking his head at me.

"Thank yourself- that was all you, Theodore," he said with a small smile, his bright eyes twinkling.

I did that? Huh. I must be pretty awesome if I did that- not even Hermione could blast away the bracelet. It was, of course, because she had books and knowledge, and I had a true passion for magic. Well, for her, anyway.

"So... What do we do now?" I questioned Hermione. She didn't say anything. "You can stop staring at me like that. I mean, my skin's green, but I'm no alien."

"Sorry," she apologized. "That was just... weird." Something I'd said was repeating in my brain, something important...

"Aliens! That's it!" I exclaimed. Now Hermione was looking at me like I was mad. Dumbledore just smiled at me again. Could he really... no.

"Don't you want to be avenged for all that stuff that the guys yelled at us? Well, me? It'd be the best prank this year, in my house, at least."

Hermione grinned. "That would be pretty fun... But, first things first."

"What?"

She rolled her eyes at me. "Dinner, Theo!"

"Oh, that!"

Dumbledore actually winked at me as we left, and the door closed behind us. I turned to Hermione with a smile and asked her, "Want to hold my hand?" She laughed at me, then did so. And, yeah, it was even better than before.

Way, _way _better.

**J. K. Rowling owns the magnificent Harry Potter.**

**Written for 123Quarter's "Interhouse Relations Competition", shiftingful's "Love Never Fails Challenge", and xXKissingSinXx's "That's Precise Challenge". **


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